


Sleepless Nights

by Naesnark



Series: Don't you get it? I love you. [1]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, One Shot, Pre-Season 5, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:27:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24286612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naesnark/pseuds/Naesnark
Summary: Catra's been having the same dream over and over. And every night she can't sleep after it. (Short)
Relationships: Adora & Catra (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Series: Don't you get it? I love you. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1753237
Comments: 19
Kudos: 69





	Sleepless Nights

**Author's Note:**

> Hey friends, this is a fanfic I started writing last year, right before season 2 came out, but life got in the way and I never finished it.  
> I was re-reading it and thought it was worth posting this part of it here, as it still fits with canon. Besides, this is a whole new hit to the feelings now that they are canon, huh? It's been 4 days and I still can't believe it.  
> Anyway, enjoy the sapphic yearning.  
> NOTE: I guess this fanfic has become a prologue to my following work, [Nights](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24818128/).
> 
> Feel free to check it out next!
> 
> EDIT: OOF, apparently I wrote this BEFORE SEASON 2. I found my first draft of it and it's timestamped. Damn, Catra, I read you like a book.

_Happiness is a feeling reserved for a select few._

If happiness is a feeling assigned according to geographical location, Force Captain Catra does not doubt that the Fright Zone is outside the happy perimeter.

Maybe it wasn't always that way when she was younger and naive. She probably had hopes, once. Everyone does before they’re betrayed.

As the circumstances dictated, she asked happiness to kindly go fuck itself and decided to bask in the intricacies of ambition instead. At least, that’s what she tells herself.

Catra often finds herself in the common dormitory, directly in front of Adora’s empty bunk bed; where whoever sees her knows better than to comment, lest they risk losing a limb. She has her own quarters, now, and doesn’t know why she keeps coming back.

Lord Hordak considered it complete nonsense and stated that the sheets were to be replaced and the cot reused, but the truth was that no one dared to set foot anywhere near it. The Horde had tried to assign it to other recruits, but the look Catra gave them nearly pushed them to the point of desertion. 

So while cadets run, jump, fight, and train to exhaustion, Catra stands in front of an empty bunk with its sheets neatly tucked under the mattress, her fists clenched and a vacant look in her eyes. She wholeheartedly wishes she could _snap out of it_ , but she keeps returning every night, somehow expecting more than an empty bed.

A growl grows in her chest when she sniffs the air and is reminded that the sheets have been changed, no longer having any trace of Adora’s scent. _Enough._ She turns her back on the cot and walks out of the dormitory, silently making her way back to her room.

She smirks as cadets shudder away to let her pass. This pleases her: fear is something she can work with.

She remembers being a cadet. She remembers being terrified of failing, terrified of Shadow Weaver, and, most of all, terrified of losing Adora. Alas, after you lose everything you’re afraid of losing, there’s nothing to be afraid of anymore.

She shuts the door behind her and sighs, grateful not to have Scorpia or Entrapta lurking around. She sits down on her bed, wondering if it’s worth sleeping, given that curfew has already passed.

Lately, Catra hates to sleep. Mostly, she hates the way Adora’s scent slips into her dreams, and how, even in dreams, she’s always _so damn beautiful_ that she can’t look away.

Every night, the Adora in her dreams dodges her every attack, somersaults out of her way, blocks her claws, and parries her blows. Every night they dance the same dance. The choreography is never the same, but the way it ends is: a broken sword, a broken heart, and Adora wounded at her feet, bleeding from deep gashes covering her face and arms.

The upcoming victory floods her and the feeling is exhilarating, but she can’t bring herself to strike the killing blow, standing motionless as Adora locks eyes with her. _Adora_ , not She-Ra.

Catra hates what she sees in her eyes. She expects to see fear, but she never does. She expects to see pain, but there is none to be seen. Adora’s eyes never leave her own, but the emotion they convey is too much for Catra to bear.

That’s when she starts shaking. She wants to wipe that look of _adoration_ from her eyes, but all Catra can do is tremble and tighten her jaw so hard that her head hurts. All that stands between her and success are those eyes and she can barely face them. She balls her hands into fists, digging her claws into her palms, and bares her teeth.

But dream Adora is too much like the real Adora, and her eyes are a mix of hope and care, and other feelings that Catra refuses to acknowledge. Dream Adora still looks at her as if she were the centre of her world, and it feels like acid being poured in her chest. She wants to slap her, to claw out those loving eyes, but she is in too much pain to do it.

She screams at dream Adora to go fuck herself, to go back to the twisted pit of perfection where she came from, where dreams aren’t nightmares, where girls are blonde and tall, and _drop-dead gorgeous_ , and where best friends don’t leave each other after promising to **stay**.

Before she can make up her mind, she wakes up in a puddle of her own sweat and tears. She curses Adora under her breath, covers her face with her pillow, shudders, and checks the time to see how many hours she has left before dawn. Too many hours. It’s barely been an hour since she fell asleep, even though the nightmare seemed to last for a thousand years. With the deepest of sighs, she lays her head back on her pillow and stares at the ceiling.


End file.
